Esma encore

... well I did only a very little of digging for vinyls, this most recent European trip (there was however a substantial component of film research). Here is the fruit of a leisurely wander thru the market stalls at trg. Brittanski, my first day in Zagreb. The vendor sniffed dismissively at the crates I was riffling, "Zose are do-mestic". "Oh. Good!", I thought.

This is early Esma Redzepova - her voice is in a much higher register, & she has a wildly expressive ululating vibrato. Difficult to date with any confidence, as nothing like a year appears on either of the cover or the record labels, and scant information by way of a discography is available online. But, so near as I can figure, this is her first LP.

A couple of these tunes have become standards of the contemporary Balkan/Gypsy repertoire, and I've heard several performed this year by both Fanfare Ciocarlia and the Kocani Orkestar. Caje Sukarije is something like her signature tune, and was infamously bootlegged on the Borat soundtrack. I'm guessing there may be some interest in this; something like 100 folks DL-ed the Esma tape I posted an age back; several tracks from that tape reappear here, but in greater fidelity.

Anyways. Enjoy!

Beard on a bender at the reels of steel

Monday, I discover that Pierre Henry will be performing live diffusions in Paris at the end of the month...

Tuesday, I called my travel agent

Wednesday, I'd paid for my flight

Tomorrow, I will be in Europe! First & last stops are London. Most of the in-between is the Zagreb Music Biennale, but 1 (of several) anticipated highlights is the chance to hear Henry mixing Messe pour le temps present to a new choreography by Emmanuelle Huynh.

Full schedule of the Pierre Henry concerts can be found, here

Some pleasing youtube clips, here and here